Fröhliche Weihnachten!

This Thanksgiving I traded turkey and dressing for schnitzel and red cabbage, as I had the opportunity to spend the week in Germany! During the weekend prior to Thanksgiving, an annual Euro-American Family retreat is held there, primarily consisting of missionaries and some military families living across Europe. A couple of my friends had served as teachers for the children's Bible classes in previous years and this year it was my turn.

This year's retreat was held in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a very-well preserved medival town. It really is like stepping into a storybook! We took a tour of the town one afternoon, and one fact I was very interested to learn was that the town maintained it's 13th century look due to poverty - the town lost most of its money during the Thirty Years War and was unable to grow or update.

Town Hall

Our tour

Decorated for Christmas

Outside the city wall

Walking the city wall - it was cold!!

My friend and fellow SWA Employee, Amber, and I taught the youngest children at the retreat. Although the 11 children, ages 2 - 2nd grade, were a few more than we were expecting, they were all so fun and well behaved I don't think we would have enjoyed it as much without all of them. Along with teaching some familiar Bible stories, we had fun with lots of songs, games, and crafts!

Our class

Making origami boats for Noah's ark

Snack Time - they loved the goldfish crackers!

Going fishing

Craft time - handprint flowers

Amber and Silas - our youngest kid in class

Craft night - decorating backpacks

At the end of the retreat, our class and the rest of the elementary age kids (who were taught by our fearless leader, Linda) put on a show for the adults to exhibit the lessons they had learned during the week.

The "clock girls" start our skit about time.

The boys do a skit about John 17 - the theme for the retreat.

Ending the skits with a unity web.

Each night the teachers made sure to find a still open restaurant where we could get some late night desserts! Though all of the food was fabulous - schnitzel four times in one week :) - the apple strudel was probably my favorite. Making both of our mother's proud, Amber and I documented most of the meals with photos.

Amber, Linda, and me

Linda with a chocolate sundae.

Amber with spaghetti ice cream - so fun!

My favorite - apple strudel!

After the retreat was over, we still had a couple of days before heading home. Amber and I hit the road (via the German train system), making our way to Neuschwanstein Castle, Garmish, and Munich before heading back to Frankfurt for the flight home.

Neuschwanstein Castle
This is probably the most photographed castle in Germany and the place everyone said "you have to go see." We weren't disappointed, the views were incredible!





Garmish
A small town on the Austrian border where the 1936 winter Olympics were held. We hiked out to and through the Partnach Gorge, a chilly but very beautiful site.

The ski jump at the Olympic stadium.

These locals were playing a game when we walked through the stadium. No clue what the game is about, but they sure were having fun!

Munich Train Station
When I went to Germany to visit my friend Jessica a couple of years ago, I was in and out of Munich's Hauptbahnhof (main train station) so much that returning here was like coming home. Jessica introduced me to this great place in the station that serves Döner kebab sandwiches. So of course, we had to get one when we stopped here!





We returned to Frankfurt with a day to spare, just enough time to enjoy the fabulous Christmas market! I'd heard the German Christmas markets were a sight to see and definitely wasn't disappointed. There were dozens of festively decorated booths filled with handcrafted items and homemade food spanning several city blocks. While roaming, we were surprised to run into another group from the retreat and spent the evening enjoying the market's nighttime atmosphere with them.

The Christmas market at night was spectacular!

We run into familiar faces!

There were 3 carousels, but this two story one was the favorite.

If anyone's interested in a play-by-play of the trip (aka even more pictures), Amber did an awesome job of documenting here, complete with captions and some great videos.

Blog title - Okay, so maybe it is still a little early to be saying "Merry Christmas" in any language, but since I had my first taste of Christmas in Germany this year, I thought it was fitting.